Video systems contain many different types of devices which may receive, process, store, or transmit video in different formats. These devices may be cameras, recorders, viewing devices, storage devices, transmission devices, coder-decoders (codecs), encoders, or other devices. These different devices may use different video formats due to hardware limitations, software limitations, bandwidth requirements, storage limitations, interface requirements, or for other reasons. Many different video formats are possible. As a result, video may be transmitted or stored in multiple different formats within a single video system. Each video format that is generated requires the resources of a codec or encoder to generate an instance of the video in each format.
Overview
Embodiments described herein provide systems and methods for sharing encoder output of video streams. In a particular embodiment, a method provides determining video profiles for each of a plurality of devices. The method further provides determining if two or more of the video profiles are similar by determining if parameters associated with each video profile differ by less than a threshold value. The method further provides transmitting a video stream encoded in a single format to the devices if they have similar profiles and transmitting video streams encoded in different formats to the devices if they do not have similar profiles.